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Monday, September 27, 2010

Allan Bartlett's Proposition Recommendations For November

I received my state issued voter information guide in the mail last week. So it's time to go over my recommendations on the proposed propositions. Most are pretty straight forward. Before I go into the why, here's the quick Cliff Notes version to take into the voting booth...

Prop 19 would allow people 21 years or older to possess, cultivate, or transport marijuana for personal use. I was a little torn on this one because of all the new bureaucracies that this will set up. However that is offset by the fact that prohibition has never worked for drugs and will never work. Marijuana is easier for our children to obtain than alcohol. Why on earth we would keep the black market alive for this product is silly. This is also a bellwether freedom issue for me. So on balance, I am a YES on Prop 19.

Prop 20 would take the power of the state legislature away of drawing the congressional districts for reapportionment. This is a great idea. Our politicians should not be in the business of choosing their voters. A YES vote on Prop 20.

Prop 21. This one is so simple. If you think your taxes are too low in CA, vote yes on this one. If you think that the bureaucracy should make due with the current revenues that come in, then you should vote NO on Prop 21. This proposition will levy a new surcharge of $18 every time you send in your vehicle registration and then supposedly earmarks those dollars for our state parks. The whole reason we have a state budget is to fund things like the state parks with money that already comes in. The beast needs to be starved of money, not be given anymore. Vote NO on Prop 21.

Prop 22. This one is probably the hardest proposition to understand from a voters point of view. It sounds good that the proponents say this will stop the state raiding local jurisdictions of their tax revenue. What they don't tell you is that this proposition is a bonanza for redevelopment agencies that routinely take private property through dubious eminent domain power. Vote NO on Prop 22.

Prop 23. This one is a no brainer...unless you're Meg Whitman and the only advice you take is from your billionaire leftist Silicon Valley environmental extremists. Vote YES on Prop 23. It suspends the recently passed AB 32 unless and until the unemployment rate drops back to around 5.5%. The state is at around 15% to 20% right now depending on which stats you look at. You can see why the global warming alarmists are concerned. CA desperately needs to be more business friendly. AB 32 is a job killer and must be suspended. Vote YES on Prop 23.

Prop 24. Not gonna go into a long dissertation here. This prop would repeal a lot of recent tax breaks some CA businesses have received. Liberals love to say they are "closing tax loopholes", but all they are doing is making our state less competitive when it comes to retaining and growing business. Vote NO on Prop 24.

Prop 25. Ah the liberal Sacramento stealth prop to try and lower the burden to increase taxes. They never stop coming at us. This prop would change the threshold of passing a state budget to a majority vote instead of a 2/3 vote like it right now. Just vote NO on Prop 25.

Prop 26. This proposition will stop politicians from enacting hidden taxes. Liberals and a lot of local RINO GOP councilmen like to get around 2/3 voting requirements to raise taxes by calling their schemes "fees". This proposition will end hidden fees being raised. Vote YES on Prop 26.

Prop 27. This initiative would repeal the recently passed Prop that takes away the power of the CA state legislature to redraw Assembly and State Senate districts for reapportionment. I'll say it again. Politicians should not be able to choose their voters. Vote NO on Prop 27.

Monday, September 20, 2010

A Night That Will Live In Infamy

Last night at The OC GOP Central Committee is a night that will live in infamy. It was Black Monday and a high water mark for the local GOP ruling class that is on life support. You see, ever since they got crushed in the last Central Committee elections, they have been picking fights with Tea Party activists that have been criticizing the party leadership. The whole current Exec Comm lives in their own little bubble. They have no concept of what is happening out the country this year.

So back to last night. Lynn Schott was trying to win the party's endorsement for the Irvine City council race. She was vetted by the Endorsement Committee and passed by a 5 to 1 favorable vote. This brings us to what happened yesterday. Lynn spoke to the full committee, Tim Whitacre spoke for her, and I spoke for her. No one spoke against her endorsement. So the vote comes up and it was 31 to 16...one vote short of the endorsement. Every single member of the party's Exec Committee voted against her. All it took was for one brave Exec Comm member or ex-officio to stand up and do what's right for Irvine, but alas, all there was, was kool aid drinking going on. The edict came down from high up that this endorsement must be blocked because how dare we dissent from the party leadership the way the party has been run into the ground. I pin the blame on Congressman John Campbell. His representative could have ended all of this and supported reconsideration of the vote, but he would not come off his NO position. Therefore it can be said with clarity that our Congressman representing Irvine supports Larry Agran. It is really that simple.

I saw a bunch of happy faces up there on the Exec Comm that this endorsement was blocked. Adam Probolsky was practically giddy when I spoke to him. Thanks Adam. Stay classy.

Somewhere tonight, Larry Agran is smiling. He should send a thank you card to Congressman Campbell, Mark Bucher, Scott Baugh, Mary Young, Kermit Marsh, Jack Anderson, Marcia Gilchrist, Fred Whitaker, Ed Royce, John Williams, and Adam Probolsky. Thanks guys for giving us at least two more years of corrupt leadership here in Irvine. Hope that was worth it.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

OC GOP Endorsement Committee Update

For the last few nights, the OC GOP endorsement process has been in full swing for local "non partisan" races(as if there ever was such a thing as a non partisan race). The committee has been holding court vetting many different candidates for city councils, OC Treasurer, school boards, and water boards. Suffice to say that the new process that we have developed seems to be working out well, although there will always be room for improvements.

This term the endorsement committee members are Mark Bucher, Deborah Pauly, Bruce Whitaker, Craig Alexander, Kristine Alonzo, and Mary Young.

This new endorsement process has been hard for some members and candidates to accept. It gets uncomfortable sometimes pitting one Republican against another. I totally understand that, but we need to properly vet these candidates on their track record and their beliefs or else our party brand will not regain believability and credibility as it relates to our stated principles in the party platform. In some cases it pits long time friends & relationships against each other. I for one am for this new process. I believe it is fair and lets the committee really vet our candidates though the questionnaire and direct questioning on their views. I have already had some candidates that I wanted to see get endorsed get shot down. It is what it is.

So far we have had two rounds of early endorsements and two nights of endorsement committee meetings. Regarding early endorsements, each Central Committee member may pull any candidate up for early endorsement off the list and have a separate debate on them. It's happened three or four times each of the two nights. I happened to pull San Clemente City Councilman Joe Anderson off the list this past Monday night for a separate debate. Councilman Anderson had some votes that I wanted to discuss with him. I used a great local website called Liberty First to look through his voting record. H/T to Chris Emami who did a great job researching voting records of these elected officials on our city councils. A few votes really stood out to me. He voted to ban feeding pigeons on the pier, voted to ban walking your dog in public, and he had voted to raise fees on some things. Excuse me, but why can't I feed some damn pigeons and walk my dog when I get home from work? Who the hell does this guy think he is. Ridiculous. I wanted to publicly shame this elected official to let others know in the future that when you start voting against my simple liberties, there will be repercussions and you will not get our endorsement.

The last two nights of the actual endorsement committee meetings has been very interesting. There was a knock down drag out fight between Shari Fredinrich and Keith Rodenhuis for OC Treasurer. Shari won the 3 to 2 vote with one abstention(Mary Young). Shari was blocked of an endorsement by us before the June primary and will likely get blocked again at the full committee. Sup. Moorlach is really pushing hard for Shari. At one point last weekend at CRP I asked John why he was making such a hard push for her when he was the one that gave us Sheriff Hutchens. I got the evil stare after that exchange. I believe Keith is going to win and he is going to do a great job and I support him.

The other big contentious debate was for Orange Mayor. This pitted two friends, Carolyn Cavecche and Jon Dimitru against one another. The first words out of Carolyn's mouth were that she was sorry for her pension spiking votes and later more apologies for supporting local Democrats Jordan Brandman and Tita Smith. I spoke in favor of Jon Dimitru and also pointed out to Carolyn that "it is real easy to come before this body and apologize for bad votes when you're hoping to get our party's coveted endorsement, but I guess it has been hard for you to do the right thing when no one is watching". With that, the committee voted for Jon 4 to 2. I think he has a great chance to get the full endorsement in a few weeks.

The last thing I wanna talk about is what happened Tuesday night regarding Irvine City Council candidate Lynn Schott. There is a lot of back story to this, so I will to run through what happened last night with a measured tone because I am extremely irritated at what happened. First I want to say that Lynn is a good candidate and she is a fighter. She and Jeff Lalloway are exactly what's needed here in Irvine. I spoke in favor of Lynn's endorsement as well as newly minted 70th District GOP nominee Don Wagner. So she is sailing right along until Mark Bucher and Mary Young got their chance to question her. They proceeded to grill Lynn on what happened at the past January Central Committee meeting...also known as the night Scott Baugh gave his big speech. A lot of Tea Party types had rented a room next door to the meeting because they were very mad at the leadership of the party establishment, which BTW is a very legitimate concern and political position to hold. The room was filled with pictures and caricatures of some of these leaders as well as holding a mini town hall type of event to let people angry with the local Republican Party get an earful. So back to the meeting....Mark and Mary(both on the current Exec Comm) were obviously trying to extract a pound of flesh out of Lynn because she along with I was in this meeting listening to all these fine patriots and their concerns about the direction of the party. So instead of vetting Lynn's qualifications for the GOP endorsement, they turned their questioning into a personal attack and inquisition on why Lynn attended this meeting. Excuse me guys, can we talk about beating Larry Agran? WTF! Get your personal agendas outta here. You're obviously bitter because of the almost 40% turnover in the last Central Committee elections. You wanna know why this happened? Just look at your behavior Tuesday night. That's why you lost big because people were fed up with the direction of the party and voted for a massive change in the makeup of the overall committee. In the end though we had the last laugh as Mark Bucher just made a complete idiot out of himself and Lynn held her composure well. The other members of the committee saw through his bullshit personal agenda and voted to endorse Lynn 5 to 1. I hope to god Mark trys to make an issue at the next regular Central Committee meeting so he can be exposed for all to see.